Another school shooting. This time in New Mexico. So tragic. And yet, who is surprised? We have seen this before, again and again. We know our culture.

I've recently been reading children's books from bygone eras and marvel at the freedom the children had to be away from their parents. In All of a Kind Family, by Sydney Taylor, the five daughters navigate their 1910 neighborhood of New York City without giving their mother the slightest concern. I can't even navigate Gymboree without that kind of freedom. What has changed?

In 2012, a cold case was finally cracked in the death of 6-year-old Etan Patz. The child went missing in 1979 as he made his way to school. His murderer finally confessing to strangling the little boy back in 1972. Etan’s death is considered the among the first of this kind of child violence and started the missing children's movement, including the use of pictures on milk cartons. There hadn't been task forces like this before. Now there are entire departments of the FBI and police forces devoted solely to investigating crimes against children. And these crimes aren't pretty. One FBI agent told me that you have about three hours to find a missing child and after that, the likelihood of her survival plummets.

What was also happening around the time of Etan’s disappearance in the 1960s and 70s, was the wholesale introduction of contraception and abortion. This set off the new battle against children, who were no longer freely welcomed, but chemically or surgically exterminated by none other than their own parents. All children, then, became something of an open question, particularly in the minds of struggling parents. Should she have been born? What if I had never given birth to him? Ironically, we were promised by all those in the planning parenthood profession that more wanted children would lead to less child abuse, but it has only led to more. Why hasn’t this piece of regnant wisdom held true?

In the first book of The Chronicles of Narnia, The Magician’s Nephew, C.S. Lewis has a masterful and simple explanation. In the story, Narnia has just been created by Aslan, the Great Lion, but unfortunately, the son of Adam, Digory Kirke who stumbled into the creation story, brought with him the White Witch. In an effort to protect the fledgling nation, Aslan sends Digory to fetch an apple from a particularly magic and healing tree and plant its seeds at the edge of Narnia to ward off the witch because she hates the smell of the apples. After the seeds are planted and the tree grows quickly, Aslan, believing the task to be finished, moves on. But Digory anxiously warns him that the White Witch has already had one of the apples from the original apple tree, so she must not really mind the apple’s smell. Aslan explains:

“Child… that is why all the rest are now a horror to her. That is what happens to those who pluck and eat fruits at the wrong time and in the wrong way. The fruit is good, but they loathe it ever after.”

“Oh I see,” said Polly, Digory’s friend, “And I suppose because she took it in the wrong way it won’t work for her. I mean it won’t make her always young and all that?”

“Alas,” said Aslan, shaking his head. “It will. Things always work according to their nature.”

Aslan goes on to explain how the apple will do what the apple is supposed to do. But how it is treated will determine whether the outcome is joyful or full of angst. He explains:

“If any Narnian, unbidden, had stolen an apple and planted it here to protect Narnia, it would have protected Narnia. But it would have done so by making Narnia into another strong and cruel empire like Charn, not the kindly land I mean it to be.”

Finally, Digory tells Aslan that he was tempted to steal a healing apple for his gravely-ill mother. “Understand, then, that it would have healed her; but not to your joy or hers.”

The apple, then, in our own tale of woe, is not the symbol of the child, but in fact, the nature of sexuality. By its nature, sexuality will produce what it is supposed to produce—a child. But what happens when we grasp at sexuality in the wrong way and or at the wrong time? It will make us hate or resent the natural fruit of it: a child. We have spent decades grasping at sexuality but rejecting the fruit. It should come as no surprise, then, that children suffer. But what we forget is that these children also grow up without the joy proper to a child; they bring their own suffering into the world, the fruit of which we are now growing accustomed to in shootings, suicides, porn, drug abuse, bullying and apathy. “Things always work according to their nature.”

One way we can help our children is by going to VOTE. Every time we hear about a goofy Judge’s decision, keep in mind that 40% of these Judges were appointed by Obama. That’s why we need Senators who will confirm Trump’s great nominees. LIFETIME JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS greatly affect our children.

Posted by MorganB on Monday, Dec, 11, 2017 4:10 PM (EST):

You speak about crimes against children… where does one start?

Seems that ever since the political ambitions of Roy Moore surfaced people are paying attention. He is alleged to be a pedophile having had sex with a 14 year old school girl while he was a 32 year old AG. We will know the outcome Tuesday 12/12/2017. The Governor of Alabama, Kay Ivey, set the Southern Bell tone when she said she would vote for Moore regardless if the allegations were true. WOW!

The volume is still muted with Trump having rejected the allegations of 16 young women for sexual misconduct. The electorate doesn’t seem to care that he was caught on tape “Access Hollywood” admitting to sexual groping and other atrocities.

Speaking about the real atrocities against helpless innocent children…
Last month there was a program on PBS that gave some insight into the horrible conditions young children, babies must endure in Aleppo Syria. A mother and her (5) children were seen trying to negotiate the rubble strewn street. She had to carry the two youngest while the older children fended on their own showing bleeding feet and obvious contusions elsewhere. The first thing that came to mind was, where was the father? How could an Arab woman bring five kids into this impossible situation where they could die at any time? Speaking of a tattered childhood influencing and shaping the child for adulthood. Today there are two “hot spots” where the church should exercise influence on responsible parenthood. They are the Middle East and South Africa. There are few African countries where it is safe to raise a child. A child in Angola is 20 times more likely to die before the age of 5 than one in the United States. Somalia is a real Hell. Niger, Nigeria and the Congo have low child survival rates. What can be done?
Talk to your Bishop and see if he knows of these inhumane conditions and ask his view on moving toward the salvation of the masses. If he pleads ignorance move up to his boss.

Posted by MorganB on Monday, Dec, 11, 2017 1:10 PM (EST):

Thank you. Every time we read of a school massacre we scream to the high Heavens. Does anything happen? I say NO! Most, if not all, school killings involve firearms. Not your run of the mill weekend 30-30 hunting rifle, rather military style AR15 rapid fire machine guns that kill the most people in the shortest time. Those powerful rifles are killing our kids at an ever increasing alarming rate. Who is helping parents find the answers? Not our president who always blames massacres on the mentally ill, not the guns. Trump, who just signed an executive order to make it easier for the ill to purchase weapons, nor the NRA, or the Republican House where they just passed The Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017 which is sponsored by the NRA and allows concealed weapons to be brought across state lines. To imagine the sheer life threatening difficulty confronted by an arriving young police officer to a domestic dispute is mind boggling. If the crowd all flash their once concealed weapons, he is faced with the impossible task of distinguishing the bad from the good. This is the only place that I would agree to a political religious bully pulpit to set our moral thinking straight on gun legislation.

We implore our clergy be heard in the public square!

Posted by will on Monday, Dec, 11, 2017 10:36 AM (EST):

So contraception causes school shootings? I don’t think so, as they are two totally different things. This is one of the most incoherent articles that I have ever read.

Posted by linred on Sunday, Dec, 10, 2017 12:19 AM (EST):

Do you really believe Trump could lead us back to good and normal? Shame a thousand times on you. Get out of Fantasy land! We will never regain our stature as a world power with such a deadly cancer on the body politic. May we be healed of this deadly disease before it is too late. America first? T will always put T first.

Posted by Leah Joy on Thursday, Dec, 7, 2017 9:57 PM (EST):

As soon as I was old enough to study the deeper meanings of sexuality and the reasons for the church’s opposition to contraception, I thought of this scene from The Magician’s Nephew also. (Polly is Digory’s friend, not his sister.) So many spiritual lessons I absorbed without knowing it from the Narnia books when I was a child! They prepared me for the teachings I would receive as an adult. Thanks be to God for C.S. Lewis; he was certainly a blessing to me. May God forgive his sins and give him an eternal reward.

Posted by Dan on Thursday, Dec, 7, 2017 7:12 PM (EST):

Great article, explaining how liberalism and its sexual “revolution” have destroyed everything just as Satan has planned. Thank God that that commie piker Obummer is out of office, that wicked witch lost, and Trump triumphed!
Maybe the US can someday return to being good and normal.

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Carrie Gress has a doctorate from the Catholic University of America and is a philosophy professor at Pontifex University. She is the author of several books, including The Marian Option: God’s Solution to a Civilization in Crisis. Carrie is the co-author with George Weigel of City of Saints: A Pilgrims Guide to John Paul II’s Krakow. A homeschooling mother of four, she and her family live in Virginia. Visit her blog at www.carriegress.com.